Open Studio during artist’s residency

This event was organized by TheArtists celebrating the publication of the Cahiers d'Artistes 2023, designed and published by Jungle Books. It was part of a series of eight individual formats – including screenings, performances, talks and readings – with each artist who realized an artist book with the support of Pro Helvetia in 2023: Patricia Bucher, Martin Chramosta, Maria Guta, Thomas Julier, David Knuckey, Rhona Mühlebach, Gabriel Stöckli and Eva Zornio. The programme took place between October and December 2023 at various locations in Switzerland. For those interested, they offered the opportunity to obtain a copy of the small edition Cahiers.

SOUP/SUP, 240 x 320 mm, 124 pages (published by Jungle Books)

David Knuckey studied at the Haute école d’art et de design Genève and at Zurich University of the Arts. His work consists mainly of paintings and sculptures, which he conceives as series. He uses diverse materials, including acrylic paints, wax, resin, PU foam, wood and plaster. His artistic work strives to blur the boundary between abstraction and representation. Knuckey makes use of images and everyday objects, which he then transforms. Reduced to their essence, the resulting objects and images often seem to have lost their original purpose.

His Cahier d’Artiste, entitled «SOUP/SUP», presents a diverse collection of photos from his exhibits and his studio as well as sketches and notes. The images from his personal archive enter into dialogue with one other in the publication, flowing from one page into the next and reappearing surprisingly later. The content, compact and dense, is counterbalanced by blank pages. The format and design lend the book a magazine-like quality that conveys a certain ease, lightness and spontaneity. The content focuses on Knuckey’s artistic practice, his work process (with sketches and notes) and his work in the studio.

The text for David Knuckey’s Cahier d’Artiste was written by curator Judith Welter (Zurich). Welter studied art history, Spanish literature and religious studies at the University of Bern. She completed her doctoral dissertation in 2014 on the role of rumours and anecdotes in contemporary art. From 2015 to 2021, she was the Director of the Kunsthaus Glarus. From 2004 to 2015, she worked for the Migros Museum of Contemporary Art in Zurich, where she was the Collections Curator from 2012 on. Since 2016, she teaches at various universities and is the Director of Studies in the Master of Fine Arts programme at Zurich University of the Arts.